Corrections and clarifications

Sir David Hare did not say of Colin Powell that he had had "grave reservations about the 45-minutes claim" as was stated in the report, Hare: I was wrong about Powell. He lied, page 10, yesterday. Powell made no use of the 45-minute claim of the British government. What Sir David did say was that Powell took the 240-minute speech given to him by the vice president, Dick Cheney, and the CIA, and shortened it to 45 minutes. Colin Powell was also mistakenly described as US secretary general when he was secretary of state. Sir David was speaking at the Guardian Hay festival in a New Statesman supported debate chaired by its editor, John Kampfner.

Lloyd George's bagman was Maundy Gregory not Horatio Bottomley, as we stated in error in a column, Pride and corruption, yes - but no need to call the cops, page 31, May 17. Bottomley was serving a sentence for fraud between May 1922 and 1927. The honours scandal broke in June 1922 and Gregory was later convicted, in 1933, under the 1925 Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act.

Alicante is home to the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) and not the European Patent Office, which is in Munich (People, page 4, May 24).

Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel was mistakenly described as a head of state (Merkel calls for fundamental review of European mission, page 19, May 12). She is a head of government. The federal president, Horst Koehler, is head of state.

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